Hope from Vivi Herself

Vivi in her Happy Place: Mahopac

Hi Everyone,

My mother is now quite a few months into treatment at the Bruckner Center. This miracle of a place which houses two brilliant doctors, a team of passionate nurses, and a family of patients, all from varying backgrounds of life and cancer, all who travel near and far to seek something that other places could no longer offer them - hope.

Hope. This is exactly what my mother and our family have been able to regain for the first time in a long time. There is now hope. Great hope.

It is still hard to wrap my head around the fact that - just a few months ago - I sat across a table from our doctor at Sloan Kettering holding my mother's hand through the toughest news she would have to hear since her original diagnosis - the battle was over. The cancer had won. The treatment options had run out. Time was officially going to run out sooner rather than later. Much sooner.

It is even harder to wrap my head around the amount of people that have walked out of similar meetings - at similar and equally respected institutions - and accepted defeat. I waiver somewhere between sadness and anger when I think about how many lives that have been unnecessarily lost to cancer because people either aren't informed or aren't encouraged to keep fighting.

I must note that we know as well as anyone - after three long years of this endless battle - that there are many days when the thought of all of it just being over is actually a relief. People's spirits and bodies are so beaten and broken by a certain point, that the notion of no longer needing to muster up strength that they don't have is a gift. If my mother had walked out of that meeting (and I half expected her to) and had simply said "enough" - I not only would have accepted it, but I would have supported it.

However, she didn't - and she didn't have to. We are part of the lucky few who have access and resources to know that there are options beyond conventional treatment and artillery yet to be discovered to keep going and keep fighting. With her new armor in hand, my mother chose to keep going. She chose to fight - and now we can say - she chose to win.

My mother had her first CT scan after receiving her new treatment a few weeks ago and I could not be more thrilled to inform you that she is officially back in remission!!!

Does this mean the battle is over? No. Does this mean that life is back to normal? Far from it. Does this mean that we are out of the woods yet? Not even close. Do we now have a reason to be hopeful? Absolutely.

As you all know my mother is an incredibly beautiful writer (if you didn't know before, you will now), and since I was not able to be present for the results of this scan, I encouraged her to write about the experience herself - as well as share some of her journey over the past few months with you.

So, I will let my mother - the beautiful Diamond Warrior herself - take it from here. However, I want to encourage all of you to please spread the word on this amazing place - The Bruckner Center. They are working true miracles. Unfortunately, the majority of us are touched by this horribly cruel disease in one way or another - so I ask that you help those who you may know that are fighting their own battles to keep fighting - even when they think they have run out of ammunition.  There are more options than you think - you just have to seek them out. So - KEEP FIGHTING! KEEP DIGGING! KEEP PUSHING! FUCK CANCER!

As I said earlier, too many lives are lost to cancer, and if I can help save even one by writing this pithy post - this all will have been worth it.

With that said, here is a very special treat from Vivi herself. Please note: my mother asked me to edit this before posting, but I told her I would not. Grammatical errors aside, I wanted you all to hear Vivi's voice straight from her heart - as it should be. I would also like to note that I have many pictures to share, and promise to post them soon, but will leave you with just these words for now:

Hello everyone! I'm actually writing this after 2 days of intense chemo. Why? Who knows. I'm doing this while downing a brioche drenched in butter and orange marmalade. Next a magnolia cupcake and then a home baked choc chip cookie. Yum! I'm alone at the kitchen table and there are no staring eyes piercing me with that "this is no way to eat" look! I think fuck it I'm going to enjoy this. It's hard enough to eat after treatment as it is although all the steroids that get poured into me before chemo put me on a stomach high! Whatever that is!

Anyway back to the blog. I really wanted my sweet girl Aly to do this but she is up to her eye balls in work and new ventures that she insisted I try but promised to edit and add photos. She is such a damn good writer I simply cannot fill those magnificent high heels!!

As you now know we are in a different place and truthfully it's been an amazing experience. Full of courageous  people from every corner of the earth of every background race and beliefs. A real family of man. A place that is the salt of the earth and this disease that haunts so many is right there. In front of you. There is no escaping it. Some are sick beyond anything you could imagine. Some less. But there we all are in an open chemo room. Large and quite comfy. Each one always gets their own chair. I tell them I sold a diamond to get just the one that suits me best! Right by the bathroom where everyone passes me and many stop to chat. I've met the most amazing astonishing people fighting with everything they have to stay alive. One young man in his 20s comes all the way from Israel. He has brain cancer. Another wonderful woman I met yesterday comes every 2 weeks from Florence with her son. She speaks no English and we spoke thru her son who does. She also has ovarian.
So here it is and dr Bruckner walks around greeting patients and many take his hand and kiss it. Yes I'm one of them!!

I just finished my 7th round there and it's not for the faint at heart. I have one more to go and then he promised to re negotiate how he would handle the treatment. No idea what that means but I've begged for the summer off or at least a reduction to some extent. We shall see. That's alys favorite expression!

About a month or so ago I had my first Bruckner scan. I was scared shitless needless to say. It was at a new place and in the Bronx!! What did they know? Am I such a hard assed New Yorker? I was expecting a crowded place with a long wait time and didn't really want to go at all. Well it was the best experience of any I've had so far. The nurse who took care of me was this handsome dude from Jamaica with long dreadlocks. I could have run off with him and when I tried he said he would too but first I had to get this radioactive dye put into a vein and then sit still for an hour while it took and cooked. Then I would go thru a piece of machinery much like an abbreviated tunnel lying still as a cat waiting for its pray for almost an hour while they took hundreds of pics from my head to my knees. Luckily the guy doing the test would come in and tell me how much time I had left while I clenched my teeth and sang to myself. Finally it was over. Then the wait. That awful wait. First to see if they needed to re do anything then to get the radiologist to review everything. 

Suddenly some one came and told us that he needed to see us. Us was morty Aaron and myself. Never go to these things alone! I froze and refused to go with them so they went to his office and I stayed back in the little waiting area shaking and sure that I was doomed for good. I wanted to flee when all of a sudden another patient came close to me. Took my hand  rubbed my back and began praying over me. Chanting actually. I wasn't sure what to do. She kept telling me all would be ok but I couldn't hear that because I was numb with raw fear

Then there was morty. Waving to me. Both thumbs up. Jumping all around. I thought he was drugged as well. He had to drag me down the hall into a tiny office with a large sort of X-ray all lit up. I couldn't look at it. I clenched my eyes and began to cry. The news was good! The scan was clean! No evidence of disease! I still didn't hear it. "she's in shock" he said. "I see it all the time. The battle to win over this disease is too intense and exhausting and she can't fathom it. Will take time. Lots of time."

I went back to the clinic right after and saw dr Bruckner. He told me I got an A plus and said I should leave the office as I was too healthy! A joke of course I was sure. But he has a great sense of humor. My nose was bleeding at the time and he replied when I asked what I needed to do not to walk on a white carpet!  

So there you have it. But the fight goes on. This is when you push even harder to keep it away and he assures me there are lots of tricks up his sleeve. Again we shall see. Not sure what lies ahead and it's still very scary and courage doesn't always stay with me. But one step at a time. Brick by brick as they say.

For now? Where's that handsome dude? Ha ha. My 36th wedding anniversary is coming up. Aaron and Kelly are going to have a baby and Aly is getting more beautiful everyday with lots of great things happening. So I have to go on to fight. To never give up even when it's unbearable. To embrace my fabulous incredible priceless gem of a family and all of you who continue to travel this journey with me. I love you all and together we need to keep saying "fuck cancer". Or at the very least bump into a handsome dreadlocked Jamaican who you just want to hug while he says "it's all going to be ok". Now if I could only own that!!

From the Great Diamond Warrior, Herself!

Hi Everyone,

We received results from a test today that may just be an indicator that hope is, in fact, truly on the horizon. Vivi gets a regular blood test that measures her CA125 - which is an indicator of growth in ovarian cancer cells. The test has proven to be rather unreliable at times, but still, it is one of the only measuring tools we have - other than opening her up! In any case, the test came back showing VERY low numbers - 27! Just to give you an idea - this test read 2800 when she was first diagnosed, has maintained itself between the high 60s and 100s over the last few years, and anything under 35 is considered normal. So a 27 is VERY hopeful indeed!

More importantly, it has reinstilled hope in my mother - offering some extra strength to continue along this death-defying journey! With that said, my mother was moved to share some incedibly inspiring and beautiful words in a note she asked me to send along to all of you.

So from the woman herself:

To all of you who have loved me and held my hand and shown undying support. Who have carried me up and beyond the most treacherous journey I will ever know. To all of you who have listened and read the amazing blog my magnificent daughter Aly has continued to bring to you. To all of you who make my heart sing and bring me forward every second of every day. Whose hope has never stopped and whose embrace I feel all the time - I say thank you. It will make me survive. Hell, it will truly embody the words Fuck Cancer! So onward we go and still in battle on the front lines. Wounded. Weak. Exhausted. But ever grateful you are all in my life. It's the greatest gift and it will help me win!!

The New Normal

 After you read this blog post, look back at this photo! This was from a few weeks back, when we enjoyed a family ping pong night out! 

 Life Continues! Vivi, Morty, and Butoh! 

My mother making hospital time look very glam after we decorated her IV pole with Christmas ornaments!

 Our new motto: "Fuck cancer. Praise diamonds."

 Aaron setting up our Thanksgiving meal of sushi in the lounge at the hospital.

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for our/my lack of updates over the last few months. However, my mother's situation has been changing non-stop, that it's been hard to keep up with everything ourselves, let alone making sure I am keeping all of you up to speed. However, after some major changes in the last few weeks, I felt it was time to offer an update. It's a rather long one - so pour yourself a cup of tea, and find a cozy spot to sit!

As you are all aware, my mother underwent major surgery this past fall due to a severe intestinal blockage. The surgery left Vivi with an ileostomy bag, which I will spare you the details of - if you don't know what it is - but I will say there is nothing easy about living with one (she will have it for the rest of her life), and Vivi has been an absolute trooper through this major adjustment. Additionally, the surgery led to several other complications, all of which my mother has bulled through, guns blazing and diamonds blinging!

We spent the better part of this Fall at Sloan Kettering - where we could not have asked for better care from nurses and doctors who became extended family by early Winter. It's always comforting to be on a first name basis with the entire staff of a hospital you spend a lot of time in - until you realize that you are spending so much time in said hospital that you are actually getting to know these people so well. We even spent Thanksgiving night there, fabricating our own "family dinner"out of ordered in sushi in the lounge on the 19th floor of the hospital. We were still making that lounge our second home when the holidays rolled around, and we spent one evening stealing ornaments off of the Christmas tree to decorate my mother's IV pole. Strangely, while it was a stressful time for us all, there are a thousand memories we will forever hold from those months. And, per usual, we also walked away with many classic Vivi stories. Even when she is nearly on her death bed, only my mother can provide such antics and entertainment. Just to share a few:

As most of you know through my stories by now, my mother refuses to stay in the hospital unless she has a private room. This becomes her sole mission upon entering the doors of Sloan Kettering - no matter what her condition. Well, this time, it was taken to a new extreme. After my mother's initial major surgery, which was over 4 hours, and invasive to the point where I will leave the details of the nature of the surgery out - but needless to say, she was in for a long and tough recovery. Anyway, we have been through enough of these as a family at this point, that we have the drill down pretty well. 1-3 of us can be with her up until surgery. Then they send us to the waiting room (or down to the cafeteria if it's a longer surgery as this was) and call us along the way with updates. Then when surgery is completed, we meet with the doctor to get the full report, and are eventually let into the recovery room to see my mother once she is awake. However, these post-surgery visits are only 15 minutes, and from my experience are usually not very pleasant. Not only is it just tough to see my mother in such a state, but she is generally not very lucid and can only manage to ask a few basic questions over and over again (except for the one time when the nurse informed us that she was going on about how brilliant her son - my brother Aaron - was and then turned to me and asked if I was also family).

In any case, this was by far the hardest post-recovery visit I had experienced yet. My mother was clearly in a lot of pain, and could barely open her eyes or speak. However, we still had to go through with her wishes - that Aaron and I check on her while my father arrange with the attending nurses to make sure she be moved to a private room in the ICU. So we did just that. Aaron and I went to our mother's side, doing the best we could to comfort her, make her aware of what just happened and help her understand where she was. Meanwhile, my father went to speak to the nurse who was standing about 10 feet away from the bed. As soon as the words "private room" came out of my father's mouth, my mother's eyes shot open, she lifted her head, and very clearly shouted, "Ask for Domingo!" Mind you, Domingo is the man who organizes room reservations at the hospital and would be the most likely candidate to arrange for the private room. So while my mother didn't even know where she was, she sure knew exactly who she had to speak to in order to arrange her private room - wherever it may be!

Story number two was just before my mother's second surgery where they were putting a tube into her kidney to help it function better. Again, we went through our usual drill. However, since this was set to be a rather short surgery, my father and I (who were there that day), opted to simply wait in the waiting room. We knew we would get an update after the was put under, when surgery started, when surgery finished, and when we could see her. Generally, if you are in the waiting room, someone will come out and ask for the family of the patient. So our cue would be, "Teich Family". We then raise our hands and someone comes to update us on her status. We had, unfortunately, been in this particular waiting room several times over that week, so I knew the guy who was the "informer" quite well at this point.

However, all of a sudden, I hear a female's voice, but she was not asking for our family, she is asking for ME! I hear, "Aly? Aly? Is there an Aly here?" After looking around to realize there was not another family with the last name Aly, I apprehensively raised my hand, and was then approached by the woman who was clad in scrubs, and clearly an O.R. nurse. Needless to say I was rather confused, especially when she walked up with her phone out. She then informed me why she was coming to find me.

"Honey, I need to take a picture of you."
"Um, what?" I said, looking at my father who was equally confused.
"Your mother refuses to let us put her under until I take a picture of you."
"Okay, why?"
"She thinks one of our surgical fellows is cute, and wants him to see a picture of you before they start surgery."

While this may seem completely outrageous to the common person, if you know my mother as I do, you, too, would be conditioned to such moments. So without further question or hesitation, I smiled for the camera, asked the nurse if it came out okay, and continued chatting with my father, after offering a few quiet apologies to the other families in the waiting room. Only my mother:)

As I am sure you have gathered by now, Vivi did, despite a few hairy moments, walk away from the hospital and finally headed home. Life has certainly been a bit more challenging, and we have brought on some amazing extra hands to help with Vivi's care, but my mother is still forging ahead with as much of her Vivi zest that she can muster each day. However, the most significant update is that a few weeks ago, we made the decision to walk away from Sloan Kettering all together.

My mother went back onto chemotherapy after her surgery, and was set to have a scan to check her progress about three weeks ago. Unfortunately, the scan indicated that the treatment was not, in fact, working and her cancer was continuing to spread. Furthermore, our doctors at Sloan did not feel confident that there was much else they could offer my mother at this stage.

While it didn't come as a complete surprise, this news was certainly not easy to take. However, as a family, we were not about to give up - most especially my father - who right away set an appointment with an oncologist at Mount Sinai with whom we have consulted with throughout my mother's entire process. Personally, I wasn't all too hopefully that he would have anything further to offer, as he had seemed to be on the same page as our doctors at Sloan thus far. However, it turns out he did, in fact, have something to offer us - and something that sounded too hopeful to be true!

He informed us of a center in Eastchester called The Bruckner Clinic. They have done most of their work with pancreatic patients, as I understood at that point at least, and only had a very small group of 20 women they were treating with Ovarian Cancer. However, all 20 were either in remission or on their way to it (and their pancreatic patients - who under most circumstances don't live a few months at best - were living for up to 6 years!). See, too hopefully to be true! However, too hopeful or not - it offered just that - hope - and there is nothing else we can ask for right now.

So my mother is now on her second treatment at the Bruckner Clinic! While it has been a challenging transition to the new center (which is an hour away) and the new treatment, my mother seems to be getting through it and doing really well!

I call the treatment a "chemo cocktail".  She receives several types of chemotherapy at a low dose, all given over a 24-hour period of time, in combination with two drugs whose function is to rip down the defenses of cancer cells and help the chemo get in. She gets the treatment every two weeks, and she is able to go home in between with a pack that provides the drip overnight. So we are back in full battle mode, and have full hopes that maybe we can, in fact, beat this thing in the end.

In my next post, I will tell you all about the Bruckner Clinic, as I am still in awe of this place, but I think I have given you plenty to chew on for now.

Despite my lack of updates, you have all been, per usual, amazing and we would never make it through any of this without your love and support. It truly gives my mother, and our family, the strength to continue ahead down this long and arduous road. So we offer love back and a never-enough thank you from the bottom of our hearts!